Completion
by She Who Wishes On Dandelions
Summary: There is a beginning, a middle, and an end to every person's story, but these parts are not always in the correct order. Snape, Lily.  It was the end that came first, in a way.


**Author: She Who Wishes on Dandelions**

**Standard Disclaimer: Harry Potter is copyrighted to J.K. Rowling.**

**So, basically, this was me reading #41 of 50 Themes: Alpha and getting an idea. Yes, I know I fail at the one-sentence rule, but my plot bunnies have knives and so it really couldn't be helped. Warnings include angst and humor that eventually and unstoppably spiral out of control. **

**Word Count: 1,609**

**Completion**

~It was the end that came first, but only if one looked at it a certain way, and undoubtedly vague and metaphorical things could be said about the unpredictability of the Wizarding World or just the World in general, except Severus's life was more backward and very slightly mixed up and less splotchy or unpredictable; then again, the first potion he ever made was very much the same way, so he supposed it was all well and good in the end.~

_End. _

The last words Severus Snape speaks to Lily Evans are not in his fifth year at Hogwarts, outside Gryffindor tower, with the night air cold against his cold skin and her cold words cold against his cold heart. It is in their seventh year, the day of graduation, June 12th, 1977, and he passes her in the 3rd floor corridor at 3:16 PM.

She is wearing a scarlet rosette and they are walking past a vase that is known for spontaneously shattering and then putting itself back together again. He says, "Best wishes for the future," and thinks himself an idiot for being bland and non-specific.

The last words Lily Evans speaks to Severus Snape are in response to those five words, and they are "Go jump off a cliff." She walks away without a backward glance, even though the vase suddenly explodes and cuts his face open and lands him in the hospital wing and makes him miss the graduation ceremony.

She avoids his gaze on the Hogwarts Express and spends most of her time on the train snogging Potter. After an accidental glance as she is waiting to be able to walk through the brick wall back to King's Cross, she never again directs her green eyes toward him.

That day is considered to be the end of Severus Snape's life, although by that logic, his last day could also be that warm summer's day in fifth year that preceded the cold words and cold air and cold hearts, because it was the last time Severus Snape ever actually smiled.

_Middle._

There are two middles to Severus's life, really. The first is from ages zero to 7, which are spent curled up in a ball underneath the kitchen table as his father throws punches and his mother flings curses. It also involves murdering innocent flies. Then, of course, he meets Lily Evans and life is no longer a middle but not quite anything else either.

The second middle of Severus's life starts when he is summoned by the Dark Lord on the first of August, 1980, and the Dark Lord tells him he has found the boy from the prophecy. His Lord's exact words, which Snape was too horrified to hear, generally went something like this:

"Severus, you are the first person I am telling of my discovery, as you have so proved your worth by discovering the threat that Seer predicted. I have found that it describes Harry James Potter."

The Dark Lord, He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, _Voldemort _says other things, but Severus does not bother to retain them, for he is already planning, conniving, thinking of the exactly right way to dissuade His Lord from murdering the entire family (kill the father I don't really care just spare the mother please My Lord spare the mother please I beg you).

This doesn't work, and Severus soon finds himself on a hilltop, promising everything and anything to His Lord's greatest enemy and Professor from Hogwarts. This promise, in the end, also does nothing, and so begins the middle of Severus's life; from October 31st, 1981, to the second of May in 1998, he eats porridge for breakfast, he is the Potions Professor at Hogwarts, he is curt and snide to everyone, and he tries not to look at the green of Slytherin's colors, or any green at all, for that matter.

The middle is the in-between, the broom in the sky, the ever-stretching rainbow, that joins earth and whatever is beyond that comes after, which he doesn't want to know about but damn it he's never stopped wanting death, destruction, for everyone, everything, and himself. Death to all of it, except for the deer; doe specifically, because all stags can go hang themselves.

The middle is the middle, and to Severus it is the most mind-numbing and the most painful for two very interconnecting and depressing reasons: it is the longest part of his life and also the part without Lily.

_Beginning._

And then there's a beginning, which is normally sweet and most appreciated but always much too short. But this is Severus and so it isn't sweet: the beginning begins by way of death (by poisonous snake bite/blood loss, no less), and to hell with coming back to "life" as a Hogwarts ghost, he's seen enough of that school to last three lifetimes, but he doesn't particularly want to go On, or whatever ambiguous nonsense Dumbledore was always spouting. So additionally, of course, the beginning is not particularly appreciated.

But then he is There, in that vague, indefinite after of life, where he can remember the pain of the middle and even the end that came before, but none of it is as tragic as it used to be, and it doesn't make Severus want to wallow in self pity. He can't understand why; withdrawing into his little internal shell was his way of what muggle mind healers (psycho-a-trists, he thinks they are called) define as "coping".

Severus thinks that the beginning most likely is to be unendurably long or else awkwardly short, after which he will be caught in some sort of purgatory or black abyss; that is what he deserves for his sins, after all. There is still no feeling of irritation or sadness or anything else, and Severus is going mad from the nothingness of this After, this so-called Hell or Heaven or whatever.

Then there is a feeling somewhere in his stomach, if he still has a stomach or any other sort of body part; he sees a flash of red, but it is a trick of the light (except there's no lightness or darkness) because she couldn't be here because they couldn't be in the same place because she was good and he was himself. But if there is no dimension, no light or dark, than perhaps there is no good or bad.

Then the After-World is filled with color but Severus has a suspicion only he can see it and if there is anyone else Here, they could not see him and he could not see them. But he still sees, with what most likely is not eyes but something less material, green, which are her eyes, except she doesn't have eyes or anything else, but that's alright because she's so obviously Lily with her ringing laugh that isn't _a_ sound but more like Sound itself. She is there, is here, and she whispers to him,

"Best wishes for the future," and "I'm sorry," and "I know that you're also sorry," and all the words run together but he doesn't have ears so he doesn't get to complain about coherency and besides he understands perfectly. Then she turns and runs in that Lily way, red hair waving at him.

Suddenly, she is gone, and once more there is Nothingness, and Severus can not despair because there are no feelings, but oh he wishes to cry and this must be punishment-Except then she reappears, all eyes, and her eyebrows aren't there but she raises them anyway.

"Are you coming or what?" Yes. Yes, of course. This blankness, this nothingness, was not a place for her to spend any amount of time; there had to be something else because she was, is, forever will be Lily Evans, and that is how he sees her; not as a Potter (Merlin forbid) and not as a little girl with awe in her eyes or a teenager with a sarcastic wit but somehow a combination of everything-or well, nothing, because right now they are in the nothingness. In short, she is the messenger, sent to collect him.

Lily holds out a non-hand to Severus, and they don't have hands but somehow their fingers still intertwine. And they step forward to what Severus knows must be a place better than this Nothingness and hopefully better than Hogwarts, and really he should have seen this coming because fool though he is, Dumbledore always seems to be right about the important things.

Severus looks at Lily and Lily looks at Severus and he thinks that perhaps this beginning will not be short or long but immeasurable, as time often is. If he is correct, he will be spending an undetermined amount of eternity with her, with Lily, (he himself is now Sev) and there will be emotions, but not ones that can be described with human words; they are young again, he would say, but they are really just every age they have ever been, except now it is at the same time. Youth is just the dominant factor.

Everything is rather backwards, and more than a little murky and mixed up and not quite right but far from wrong, just like the first potion he ever tried to make. He is now to spend eternity, supposedly, not knowing how long eternity lasts, or where he is, or what he's supposed to do if he runs into James Potter. He doesn't know what will happen after the beginning, if there has already been a middle and an end.

~He can't bring himself to care, because he is with her, and so he is home. Finally, and forever. ~


End file.
